


Pinch Hits and Chocolate Pudding

by Lia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angels in the Outfield - Freeform, Baseball, Gen, Headcanon, I Don't Even Know, I mean I guess?, I'm not even sure where this came from, Stiles&Scott: BroTP, movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-16 21:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/543945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lia/pseuds/Lia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people don't even know that Stiles Stilinski likes baseball. Fewer people know what his favorite team is - and no, it's not the Mets. And they might not be a popular team or a good team and it might be a really stupid reason for liking a team but whatever - it's still his team.</p><p>Ingredients: Stilinski family feels, Stiles' horrible-no-good-very-bad-day and how he copes with it, chocolate pudding, Scott and Stiles are bros for ever, Stiles' feels, and a moderate amount of baseball talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pinch Hits and Chocolate Pudding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheGreatSporkWielder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGreatSporkWielder/gifts), [thingswithteeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithteeth/gifts).



> I BLAME MY FRIENDS. SPORKY AND RHIA I BLAME YOU. HENCE WHY IT IS GIFTED TO YOU TWO.
> 
> *cough* 
> 
> So, we were talking about Baseball. And then Rhia said "I wonder what Sheriff Stilinski's favorite baseball team is?" and I asked if Stiles' being the Mets is actually canon, and there was like a wait... no, we don't think so that's based off of him knowing the team colors. And I went. Guys. WAIT. I don't even like this team, but Stiles' favorite team will always be the THIS. Because THIS. And then I went: "Crap. Did I just write fic in chat?"
> 
> And they said: "YES! GO POST IT!"
> 
> So I made it sensible and did. *headdesk*
> 
> Written in the space of like, an hour and a half - including the conversation - and then un-beta'd, so any mistakes are mine, and if pointed out I will fix.
> 
> The title is an I-don't-know-let's-call-it-this.

  
  


Stiles Stilinski doesn’t talk about baseball too much. Well, he does a bit online, in a few forums, but most of them are full of idiots and people being assholes so he tends not to contribute _too_ much, just follow the basic stats and players and stuff. You know, the usual thing people do.

 

All of his friend’s, well, except Scott, but that’s _Scott_ and he probably wouldn’t remember offhand anyway, would probably say that he doesn’t follow baseball at all, and if he did, would guess that his favorite team was the Mets or something.

 

Stiles’ favorite team is the Oakland A’s. And it’s not for any of the usual reasons - his Mom didn’t watch much baseball and didn’t really have a _team_ , and his Dad mostly watches football. He’s never been to Oakland, never been to a minor league team of theirs, and the stats he follows mostly aren’t even from the A’s. He won’t even necessarily _root_ for them - he’s more the type of baseball fan who’s fascinated by the numbers game and the statistics and the probabilities and players than one who is wholeheartedly behind one team or another. (His favorite movie - besides _The Avengers_ , that was the _best_ \- of the past couple years was totally _Moneyball_.) And he stays away from the A’s fans - he was on some baseball forums a few years ago for a while and there were a lot of assholes out there and the A’s fans had some really assholish assholes. (Though _no one_ was as bad as the Yankee’s assholes, those fans were _dicks_.)

 

But somehow the A’s are the team of his heart.

 

***

 

One of his earliest memories is going to the movies with his Dad. It was a day just for the two of them - Stiles isn’t sure what his Mom did, never even really thought of it, but it was before she got si- anyway. It was just the two of them, and they went to the movies.

_Angels in the Outfield_ was the film and it’s the first movie Stiles can ever remember seeing in the theater, sitting next to his Dad eating popcorn with waaaaay too much butter (not that he knew it then but also? so. worth. it.) and getting Milk Duds stuck in his teeth. And they came home and he told Mom all about it how this kid Roger was alone without his Dad and how he prayed for the Angels to win the pennant and how these angels made it come true and one of them just _lifted this player_ into the air - totally effortlessly - to catch a ball. (He didn’t tell her that the movie reminded her of his best friend, Scott, because Scott’s Dad always seemed to be gone like Roger’s was.)

  
    And then one day when Stiles was like, eight or nine or something, he doesn’t remember but anyway, he was home sick with bronchitis for like, two weeks, and he was sick, and couldn’t move, kept coughing, and was _so. bored._ So his Mom went out and bought a few movies for him and rented him a few more and of course, there it was again, _Angels in the Outfield_. And then his Mom made him some chocolate pudding and they watched the movie and ate chocolate pudding on the couch and she didn’t even complain when he spilled it all down his shirt and the blanket and the couch.  
  
    They watched it twice more that week - once with Mom and Dad on either side of him, all of them eating chocolate pudding even though he’d spilled it before - just because he liked it.  
  


(He didn’t tell them then, either, that Roger reminded him of Scott, because Scott’s Dad wasn’t living with him and his mom anymore and Scott was sad that they weren’t a family anymore and some days Scott wanted his Dad back and other days he didn’t. But maybe, Stiles thought, he could find another Dad again, just like Roger did.)

 

***   

  
    Now Stiles Stilinski is 17, and he’s having an absolutely horrible, no good, very bad day. Well, compared to recently it’s not a _bad_ bad day - there’s no werewolf shit, no kanimas, no hunters and no bodies in the woods or whatever _else_ will happen next to deal with - but it’s a normal bad day and he feels horrible and he just... can’t deal with life right now.  
  
    So Stiles makes instant chocolate pudding and takes the whole bowl (yeah, it serves four but hey, his Dad will eat it if he leaves any so it’s taking one for the team okay?) and sits on the couch and digs out the VHS and puts it in the old VCR that hasn’t been used in like four years but it’s still there because it’s combined with a DVD player, so that’s fine.  
  
    And, well, he obviously didn’t remember the movie right because it’s not the Oakland A’s but a made up team called the California Angels (really?) in Los Angeles but whatever, _it’s totally the A’s okay?_ and he curls up in his Mom’s old afghan which only doesn’t have chocolate pudding stained all over it through some sort of mystical Mom powers and watches the movie.  
  
    So, okay, it’s a _totally stupid_ reason to like a team.  
  
    But whatever.  
  
    He sits there, and cheers when the Angels win the pennant, even ultimately without help, and - _shut up_  - totally does NOT cry when Roger is rejected by his Dad again. And totally does NOT cry when the manager guy adops Roger and J.P. (and he is totally NOT considering himself J.P to Scott’s Roger. Totally. NOT.)  
  
    Stiles knows it’s a stupid reason for liking a baseball team, much less _loving_ them. But he watches it because it makes him feel better. Because it makes him feel like he’s little again eating chocolate pudding on the couch with his parents - BOTH his parents - watching a movie together when  … well, when they were a bigger family.  And Scott is there too, because he’s never told _anyone_ , but he’s always believed that if there were angels that helped people like that, Scott would be first in line. (Because he deserves it; because it’s _Scott_.)  
  
    Stiles will never tell anyone that. He’s a baseball fan; he knows better than to jinx it.  
  
    And okay, maybe he hates Jackson just a _bit_ because he knows the jerk’s a White Sox fan. And maybe he likes Lydia so much just a _bit_ because he once saw her Dad wearing an A’s cap (though, Stiles admits, he’s probably one of the assholes), and maybe Scott will always be a Mets fan because his Dad was and he can’t give that up. Maybe Stiles’ll never tell Scott _why_ he like’s the A’s. But that’s probably okay.  
  
    As the credits roll and Stiles drifts off to sleep on the couch (the metal bowl he mixed the pudding in and ate it out of on the floor, the afghan slipping off the sofa in his sprawl, and oops, now he’ll have to find a way to get chocolate pudding out of it) a thought crosses his mind: _Derek is totally a Yankee’s fan._


End file.
